Anastasia, the lost Romanov princess long rumored to have survived the massacre of her royal family during 1917’s Russian revolution, is a piquant historical figure, with her share of glamor and mystery. But is she the right heroine for a big, expensive modern cartoon feature?
A few years ago, if you had made a list of the 100 best stories for potential family feature-length cartoons, I doubt the tale of Anastasia and the claimants to her identity would have made the cut. And the lavish new animated version by producer-directors Don Bluth and Gary Goldman shows why. This “Anastasia,” packed with comical courtiers, madcap villains and cutie-pie animals, is a family movie that seems too saccharine and goofy for most adults and too pseudo-sophisticated for most kids. What family were Bluth and Goldman thinking of as an audience — the Romanovs themselves?
The movie is 20th Century Fox’s big bid to crack the Disney feature cartoon cartel. (Disney’s recent re-release of “The Little Mermaid” is part of a counterattack.) And it’s both a film in the old Disney tradition and a weird new-style historical travesty, a pseudo-“Cinderella” that reduces the Russian revolution to slapstick deals with the devil, big dancing peasant routines and the comical antics of creepy sorcerers and wisecracking bats. As for Anastasia, she’s a feisty, snappy gal with Meg Ryan’s voice who hikes to St. Petersburg, pals around with cute little doggies and hooks up with con men Dimitri (John Cusack) and Vladimir (Kelsey Grammer), who, in their search for a phony Anastasia, stumble on the real one.
Feature-length family cartoons have no obligation to the historical record. But, by the end of this movie, when Anastasia dances off with Dimitri, while the evil villain Rasputin (Christopher Lloyd) disintegrates and funny animals caper about, the film hits such a bizarre kitsch level that you can almost sense the Romanovs, Lenin, Trotsky — and even Rasputin and the Three Little Pigs — all rolling over in their graves.
Despite some gorgeous visuals, a cast of star actors (the voices of Cusack, Ryan and Angela Lansbury) and a tuneful if unremarkable score by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty (“Ragtime”), “Anastasia” seems bloated and hyperactive. The script never translates this story into the pop-mythic terms that work best in cartoons. And the story itself — obviously inspired by both “Cinderella” and the 1956 movie “Anastasia” with Ingrid Bergman — is a mass of cliches and camp.
Whisking us back to pre-revolutionary Russia, “Anastasia” presents the Romanovs as a delightful family who spent their time dancing in palatial ballrooms and exchanging presents. Meanwhile, discontent brewed in quaint, snowy Russia, not because of World War I, Czar Nicholas’ excesses (which included the court career of Rasputin, his wife’s favorite), the machinations of Lenin or Kerensky, the effects of social unrest or poverty — but because of the temper tantrums of this movie’s version of Rasputin, who gets blamed for everything.
The movie’s Rasp is a satanic-looking, foul-tempered fellow, usually accompanied by a comical albino bat named Bartok (voiced by Hank Azaria). Miffed at the Czar for banishing him, the Rasp proceeds to sell his soul to the devil to get back at the Romanovs. Revolution ignites, Russia falls to peasant hordes and cute kitchen boy Dimitri helps adorable Anastasia escape Rasputin, who falls through the ice and drowns.
Ten years later, sassy Anastasia is released from a peasant orphanage to a country filled with happy little animals and miserable peasants, all so eager for her return that the population of St. Petersburg dances a mass jig in the streets (to the song “A Rumor in St. Petersburg”) in anticipation. Meanwhile, ex-kitchen boy Dimitri has acquired explosive ex-aristocrat sidekick Vladimir, and the two are holding open auditions for a fake Anastasia. The job is filled when Annie, her doggie and the two con artists all bump into each other in the mysteriously empty old palace.
But they didn’t count on Rasputin, who’s been roasting down below all these years. The evil Rasp is summoned back by a frantic Bartok, and the sorcerer chases Anastasia across Europe, blowing up her trains and following her to Paris, where she has to pass muster with the Dowager Empress (Lansbury). This was the big scene in the 1956 “Anastasia”: the meeting of Bergman and Helen Hayes’ Empress — and it’s annoyingly delayed here by the dowager’s sudden stubbornness, and by a big number where the citizens of Paris dance around in front of the Eiffel Tower, singing (I swear) “Oooh la la!”
After 94 minutes of this stuff — especially the snappish and unappealing so-called courtship between snippy Anastasia and snide Dimitri — you may yearn for Rasputin to show up and drag everybody down to hell. That’s probably unfair. Ex-Disney artists Bluth and Goldman have established themselves — since 1982’s “The Secret of N.I.M.H.” — as the prime alternative to Disney animation, and many critics credit the success of their 1986 “An American Tail” with spurring the Disney Studio on to its later cartoon renaissance. But though they’ve always been very strong on classic old Disney-style animation, they have been erratic on story, except in their two projects with Steven Spielberg (“Tail” and 1988’s “The Land Before Time”). Weak and wild are the words for this story, which falls just as hard as the Romanovs — and unlike Anastasia, isn’t revived by the lights and “Oooh la las” of a cartoon Gay Paree.
”ANASTASIA”
(star) (star) 1/2
Directed and produced by Don Bluth and Gary Goldman; written by Susan Gauthier, Bruce Graham, Bob Tzudiker, Noni White; animation adaptation by Eric Tuchman; directing animators Len Simon, John Hill, Troy Saliba, Fernando Moro, Sandro Cleuzo, Paul Newberry; production designed by Mike Peraza; music by David Newman; songs by Lynn Ahrens (lyrics) and Stephen Flaherty (music). A 20th Century Fox release; opens Friday. Running time: 1:34. MPAA rating: G.
THE VOICE CAST
Anastasia …………….. Meg Ryan
Dimitri ………………. John Cusack
Vladimir ……………… Kelsey Grammer
Rasputin ……………… Christopher Lloyd
Bartok ……………….. Hank Azaria
Sophie ……………….. Bernadette Peters
